


The Evidence Suggests

by Ranowa



Series: I Dream of Dying [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bored Sherlock Holmes, Episode Fix-It: s03e03 His Last Vow, Injury Recovery, John Watson Comes Home, John Watson is a Good Friend, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mutually Unrequited, Mycroft is so done, Pining Sherlock Holmes, greg lestrade is so done, molly hooper deserved better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24508726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: The evidence suggests that Sherlock is going to expire from sheer boredom, pine himself into an early grave, and then claw himself back to life just to haunt Mycroft for the rest of eternity.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: I Dream of Dying [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729027
Comments: 16
Kudos: 153





	The Evidence Suggests

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this one took so long! I got pulled into another writing commitment elsewhere. It's done now, so I'm back to my self-loathing Sherlock fix it!
> 
> This is mostly a fluff piece for missing scenes. There's only one more part to the series, and I promise, it has the both of them getting over themselves, and John getting the hell on with it (and Sherlock actually getting home, jfc). But I wanted to show a little bit of the rest of the cast and I needed a transition piece regardless, so this is it. 
> 
> Things are somehow even worse than they were last time I posted as well, so, seriously. Please stay safe and healthy out there, and I hope this manages to bring a smile to someone who needs it right now <3

Sherlock is finally transferred out of intensive care, and, most oddly, into orthopedics.

He starts the move irritated that he's not being transferred straight home, and ends it baffled. He was shot in the chest, not getting a hip replacement.

"Well," John says, "let's see. This is the only ward that had an open room without a window, or wasn't on the ground floor. Your surgeon also hates you, now, and was able to join forces with Mycroft to see that you got an exception."

"You really weren't joking, when you said I wasn't allowed a window ever again."

"Nope!" John proclaims, all smiles, and settles himself down on the edge of the new bed. It's marginally better than the old one. It's also still a travesty. "Mycroft's security also isn't going home until you do, so. Get used to them. And speaking of Mycroft." He fumbles in his jacket, which had been suspiciously bulky the entire evening, and at last holds out his hand with his offering in tow. "Mycroft asked me to give this to you. I think he hopes if he keeps you occupied, you won't make a run for it. Again."

It's getting a little old, to be honest- Sherlock is not going to make a third break for it, because he's not that stupid, he is not a child, he is not needlessly self-destructive. He knows exactly what state he is in and has no wish to extend his recovery by another month yet, not now, that _John is safe_ \- but he will let it slide, for the moment.

Because John is handing him an iPad.

All right, then.

Sherlock cocks an eyebrow. "An iPad," he says, allowing John to rest the tablet in his hands. "What, exactly, am I meant to do with this?"

"I don't know. Sign up for an online class. Watch a cooking channel. Update your blog on the variety of sterile alcohol solutions you can find in this hospital. I'm sure you'll find something." John shrugs, looking almost unreasonably pleased with himself. "I might even play cluedo with you, if you want. I'm sure there's an app. Whatever's necessary for you to _stay put._ "

John is- gloriously happy, nowadays. Lighter, and smiling more; he is positively incandescent. He has been on cloud nine ever since monopolizing Mycroft's services as a divorce attorney.

And his proof is right there, in the offer to sit here and play _virtual cluedo._

John Watson is indisputably, irrefutably, fantastically perfect.

Sherlock settles back, the tablet in his hands and an ache making its home even deeper in his chest, and decides that this must be what contentment feels like.

"You should go home," he says.

John's face twitches, a little, some of that light going dim, and Sherlock waves it off without the slightest bit of patience for it. "Baker Street, I mean. You moved back in, and now your bed is currently collecting dust."

"...I suppose it is. But..." He hesitates, looking over Sherlock with a trained, tired eye. "Are you sure you'll be all right? It's not for that much longer- and you'd have to _cooperate_ with your doctor, Sherlock, not-"

"Yes, John, I _know."_ He's not a child. He's been in hospital before, actually, believe it or not, and is perfectly capable of subsisting without John here. Which is the point, actually- suddenly, Sherlock looks at John, and imagines him going home, and. It's all right.

Before, he'd looked at John, and seen him exhausted, shaken, and miserable, kipping in a hospital bed and living off of takeout and tea, and it hd been okay. It had been good, because John was _there,_ and some horrible piece of himself, deep inside him, had known if John left, then he'd never see have him here again. And nobody has ever thought to accuse Sherlock of being anything less than selfish.

That's not true, anymore.

John is home. He's not going anywhere.

And what he needs to do, is actually _go home,_ because it's to the point where not even Sherlock is selfish enough to escape the fact that sitting here day after day, staring the bullet wound right in the face, is absolutely killing him.

"I'm going to require many cups of tea, when I come home," Sherlock says, because the point needs some slight editing, to make it palatable for John. "And much pampering. I won't be satisfied if you just keel over."

"Oh, yes. Of course, Your Highness." John rolls his eyes, but his answering grin is bright and warm, and he _knows_ what Sherlock is doing, but he's just smart enough to admit that it's necessary. "All right, all right. I'm sure Mrs. Hudson will be thrilled, at any rate." He hesitates again, watching Sherlock with just a tinge of worry. "You'll text me, if you want me to come back. For any reason."

"John. I have an entire floor of medical staff at my disposal, and an entire team of the most overpriced bodyguards in all of the commonwealth. _Why_ , exactly, would I need you?"

It's ludicrous. Sherlock doesn't know why he bothers pretending, at this point. It could not possibly be any more apparent, even to someone as average-minded as John: Sherlock Holmes needs John Watson.

By the answering look on John's face, his smile still quick and bright and clever and sure, John knows it, just as well as Sherlock.

It'd be embarrassing, but he doesn't really care.

* * *

For the first time that Sherlock can remember, upon being shot in the chest and left to die, John leaves for the night.

Sherlock still waits an extra eight minutes, long enough for John to have made it to the taxi queue on the kerb outside, and exactly as long as his patience can stand, to turn on the tablet.

_Consider this an open line of communication, regarding the negotiations surrounding AGRA. Your input will be appreciated concerning behavioral predictions of the subject and the preferences of JW. -MH_

Sherlock leans his head back, sucking in his cheek, and is alive once again.

"The game," he says, "is back on."

* * *

The problem is, it's the _slowest_ game he's ever played.

It's a chessboard in his mind, and Mary not-Morstan is the white queen- and no, the symbolism is not lost on him, thank you very much- while the baby growing inside her is the king. And on the other side of the board, John is their king, while Mycroft is their aggressive, go-getting, angry queen.

No, the symbolism is not lost on him on _that one,_ either.

(And if he really wants to push the metaphor, Magnussen is a bystander ready to upend the whole board, but thinking about Magnussen tends to set off the blood pressure monitor again, so. No go.)

And Sherlock?

Sherlock's not even on the board.

Mycroft is negotiating with an assassin, and _John Watson is in danger,_ and Sherlock is- relearning to walk. A text conversation debating the potential veracity of one of Mary's claims is interrupted by the brisk striding in of a team of nurses, there to cart him off for yet another scan. He's trying not to gag on mushy steamed peas and demanding to be weaned off IV painkillers while the world moves on, and there is precisely nothing he can do to stop it.

John, even worse, is of no help at all.

He refuses to talk about Mary, the baby, the divorce, or anything at all remotely relating to his pending ex-wife. He doesn't even seem pleased that Sherlock is working on the case at all. He refuses, and ordinarily, Sherlock doesn't really care what John _refuses_ to talk about, but the look on his face whenever Sherlock so much as brings it up-

It makes Sherlock wants to ask to be put back on morphine.

So Sherlock sits here, pathetic and his brain rotting inside his skull and _useless,_ tethered to life with an encrypted text message conversation with the world's nosiest prat of a human being, and he can't stand it.

It's the same urgency that had driven him out the window to ambush an assassin in an abandoned building with stitches torn inside his chest. But now there is no window. Now John takes one look at him, and installs a cluedo app on the tablet and they can play even when he's gone home for the night, and when he visits he brings Sherlock takeout and tea and sometimes even holds his hand. And it's _not enough,_ fucking hell, but it's something.

Sherlock loves John. For the record.

Not the right way. The sort of way that he can't say aloud to him, because it's Not Good, and the sort of way that he knows John will never give back to him, because John is Not Gay. Which is quite all right. Sherlock's has died for John, has stood at his wedding, and now knows exactly what it feels like to die of a literal broken heart. He can easily live with this.

It's an irrefutable fact, though. Sherlock Holmes is completely, utterly, and hopelessly in love with John Watson, and he knew it the second his tablet's screen woke up in the middle of night they took him off his constant infusion of painkillers with a notification for a game of cluedo.

* * *

Bored.

Bored, bored, bored.

_Bored!_

* * *

He skypes Molly on day...

Day...

Oh, let's be honest. He lost count of the days after spending x number of them drugged unconscious, and y number _bored out of his mind._

Whatever. He skypes Molly.

"Meet me in the lab. I want to run an experiment on the tissue of diseased liver. You've got one, don't you?"

"Um. No."

"Lies. On average, Bart's morgue has three drunks in it at any given time. Likely-"

"No, Sherlock, I mean I'm not meeting you in the lab." She raises an eyebrow, pinning him with a no-nonsense sort of glare. "Not unless John gives the okay."

Damn it.

He sighs, and for a moment wants to throw the tablet across the room. It'd almost be worth it, just to see the expensive thing smack and break against the wall. "Is this about the heroin?"

"No, it's about bullet wound, actually." She paused, her mouth twitching a little. "And it maybe is about the heroin too, a little."

Flirting with Molly to get his way doesn't work the way that it used to. He also just doesn't quite have the heart for it, anymore. Sherlock sighs, the desire for an experiment passing as quickly as it had come, and instead is languid and lax with disuse and _b o r e d._ An experiment would probably end disastrously. And then John would look at him with such disappointment and irritation, and he doesn't know the expiration date of John's newfound patience for him, but surely there is one and this would be a surefire way to find it.

"Have a nice date," he sighs, shutting his eyes. "Third one? He's a nurse... at this hospital. You're going... to... see a movie?"

He's slow, still. His mind isn't working like it should. The facts are there, but they're muddled, and he has to taste them on his tongue before he's at all sure. He'd blame it on the drugs, on inaction, on the pain, but evidence seems to suggest he's been this slow ever since coming back from the dead.

"...yes, actually. Of course." She clears her throat, and he can hear her hesitate, because she sees the look on his face and hears him being _slow_ and knows that everything is not okay. "Do you think we should stop by a cake place, after? Does he like cake?"

"I'm a detective, Molly, not a psychic. Which don't exist, by the way." He breathes in through his nose, the sharp scent of antiseptic and alcohol and blood and medicine. "Everybody likes cake."

"Even you?"

The last time he had cake, it was wedding cake. He'd thrown it up the next morning... though that might have just been the heroin.

"Even me."

Yes. It was probably just the heroin.

* * *

He logs into Mrs. Hudson's youtube, and sets a playlist of an English pastry cooking channel on shuffle. She's currently on a French kick, and hopefully this'll put something that he actually wants to eat into her recommend.

Then he spends the rest of the afternoon in conversation with Mycroft, in figuring out just what the hell they're going to do about Mary.

* * *

_Is there any point in asking you to stop downloading apps with my credit card? -MH_

**Bored. -SH**

_Likely because you took it upon yourself to go after an assassin, alone, barely twenty four hours after waking up from surgery, thus extending your convalescence by weeks if not months. -MH_

**Will you leave it alone? -SH**

**You're always complaining about having to clean up my messes. I leave you out of this one, and yet you still complain. This is why I kick you out of my flat. -SH**

_Believe me, Sherlock, this remains a mess that it is my responsibility to clean up. -MH_

Sherlock tosses an apple (thank you, John) hand to hand. It's dark and noisy and horribly uncomfortable, his room glowing green and blue with the light of the monitors and his tablet.

He wants to kick himself for sending John home.

**I didn't come to you because there was no time. Confronting her with John was the only way to trap her. -SH**

_Because I always do such a good job at keeping you safe? -MH_

**Stop being sentimental. It doesn't suit you. -SH**

_Please don't download candy crush again. My bank thought someone had stolen my identity. Goodnight. -MH_

And he actually feels the slightest bit guilty, now. Which is utter nonsense. But Mycroft is unhappy that Sherlock had gone to John before he'd gone to him, that Sherlock had trusted himself to an ex-army doctor with a tyre iron before he'd relied on the most powerful man in all of Britain, and-

It's nonsense, is what it is.

It was established in 2012 that Sherlock Holmes has an orbit, and John is his star. Texting Mycroft probably would've made that evening go infinitely easier than it had, yes- and?

Mycroft's never accused Sherlock of being sensible.

For that matter, neither has John.

* * *

1\. Sherlock (horribly) hurts John. John (undeservedly) forgives (wretched, loathsome, unforgivable) Sherlock.

2\. Mary hurts Sherlock. Sherlock forgives Mary. John does not.

3\. If Mary had hurt John, Sherlock would not forgive her. He would _end her._

The first thing the evidence suggests is probably that both Sherlock and John need to work on their measures of self-esteem and self-worth, but that's neither here nor there.

Because the reason Sherlock cares so little about the hole in his chest but cares so _much_ about what Mary might've done to John is because he loves John. He needs him. John is as essential as air, is an anchor when lost at sea and is the hurricane when Sherlock is wilting and withering on land. He'd throw himself off a building for John. Obviously.

Because the difference is that Sherlock loves John, and John- well, John is supposed to love Mary. Was supposed to.

John doesn't love Mary.

The evidence suggests that he _does,_ however, love someone else.

* * *

Sherlock solves three cold cases without getting out of bed, considers braining himself on the nearest sharp edge he can find, and hacks into NSY.

He then decides that, rather than continue his excruciating march to expiration due to sheer boredom, what the police need most is a surprise check-in.

"Oh my god. _No,"_ Lestrade moans, and all but covers his face with his hands. "You can't be serious."

"What a way to make your most brilliant mind feel wanted."

"You're not wanted. _Oh my god."_

"Come now, Graham. We both know you've missed me."

Sherlock looks- and feels- dreadful. He's wearing unflattering pajamas, his third best dressing gown, and accepted a wheelchair because falling on his face would otherwise be in his future, and he doesn't actually want to be murdered by John. If Sally Donovan had been in tow, there's a solid chance he would've reversed course and saved his pride.

But she's not here, and instead it's a choice between being in pain and less bored, and being in less pain and _very_ bored.

Which is why he's now popping in on Lestrade in the waiting room for A&E, and Lestrade, perhaps coincidentally, looks like he wants to turn around, call in sick, and not leave his flat for the rest of the week.

"I'm not letting you in on this case. How'd you even know I had a case? No, that's rhetorical, Sherlock, I don't want to know. _Please_ go back upstairs."

"After I've already come all this way? Don't be ridiculous."

"Mycroft's going to kill you. _John's_ going to kill you. Or me. God." He sinks back down into his chair, limp and exasperated, but at least he's stopped looking like he's going to force Sherlock away. "I gave you cold case files!"

He rolls his eyes. "Only marginally more useful than the flowers your office sent. Who the hell thought I'd have a use for _flowers?"_ His room had spent a week as a bloody florist shop before John took to redirecting all such deliveries to the nurse's station. "Those files were _boring._ So boring that I can only conclude they were unsolved because the original officers keeled over from lack of stimulation and died on the spot, _tell me_ about this case, Lestrade!"

The inspector moans again. It is possibly the most exasperated he has ever seen him.

But it's also the most fond, the look of resignation on his face that is exquisitely familiar, and Sherlock beams.

_Victory._

"Pictures," Lestrade instructs, slipping his mobile out. "Pictures only. When I go back to interview the victim, you're staying put. And then someone is taking you back to your room."

Sherlock ignores him entirely at that; he hardly knows why Lestrade bothered to say it. He doesn't do patient interviews. He does _crime scenes,_ not bedsides and tears. He's not interested in anything but the pictures.

It's a solid five, he thinks. Maybe a six. Ordinarily, not worth leaving the flat, but he's already left the flat. The crime scene pictures detail a burglary gone wrong, at least, that's what the scene was made to look like- he's already relatively sure the whole thing was staged.

The real crime here is that he won't get to see the scene for himself.

"So," Lestrade says, as Sherlock continues through the album. It's painfully transparent. "I saw John the other day. He's moving back in, he said."

"Yes."

"So... I guess Mary is..."

"Divorced. Yes." He purses his lips, flicking another picture. "Irreconcilable differences."

Lestrade starts, staring at him in alarm. "What- _divorced?!_ I thought she was going to be staying with you and John, Jesus- they've only been married a month!"

"Six weeks."

Lestrade stares at him, eyes wide; he looks almost aghast. And it's probably not good, but Sherlock can't help but grin, a little, tasting how that word feels. _Divorced._ Oh, it's definitely not good that that makes him proud, a little, isn't it? He wants to show it off, the same way John sometimes shows him off. Divorced. Because Sherlock is important to John.

Lestrade glances away, when Sherlock does not deign to look up from the pictures. He's still a little shaken, clearly having not expected this turn at all, and spends the next several moments just sitting there, hands wrapped together and eyes narrowed.

Sherlock isn't worried. Lestrade is tragically unskilled at the science of deduction.

"John looked... pretty happy, when I saw him. Happier than I've seen him in years, actually."

"Is this small talk? Is that what this is?"

"No," Lestrade says slowly. "Just making an observation."

"Well, do try not to strain yourself."

Lestrade is still watching him, and Sherlock suddenly feels a little less confidence in assuming this'll end all that easily.

He spends a few minutes alternating between searching through the pictures, building up what he wants to says in his head, and keeping an eye on Lestrade. Ordinarily he'd be pacing, speaking it through aloud, but his chest hurts and his tongue is dry and the longer he sits down here, the more he really just wants to lie down.

Lestrade was right. John really is going to kill him.

It's good, though. Working a case. A real, live case, for the first time since John's wedding. He breaths it in, being Sherlock Holmes, again, and it feels _good._

He hasn't felt like this since before the fall.

"Arrest the husband."

Lestrade blinks again, startled. "For breaking his own antique vase?"

"For assaulting his wife." Sherlock hands the mobile back and rubs his cold hands together, and _god,_ it's good. "He broke the vase on her, probably in a fit of drunken rage. They realised she needed medical attention, and staged the burglary to explain it."

"Oh. Okay, yeah. That's great. I can really write a report off that, that's-"

"Will you open your eyes and just _look._ As ever, you see, but you do not observe. _Look!"_ he cries, pushing the phone back into Lestrade's face. _"_ The shards of the vase didn't fall this way; the blood spatter make no sense! What sort of thief robs such an expensive home and then throws about a priceless antique as a weapon, Lestrade, _honestly-_ and there's probably a dozen more signs on the victim I'm not _allowed_ to talk to. Not to mention the husband's history. I guarantee there's a record of domestic disturbance calls. When one spouse is willing to harm another, there is _always_ a history, there are always- always _signs-"_

Lestrade is saying something, his voice low and urgent, but the words don't filter in until Sherlock realises his own have died in his throat, flagging underneath the stab that goes all the way through his chest. He's short of breath and panting, and it _hurts._ He can feel every stitch inside him, his heart strangled and squeezing, his throat and lungs scraped raw, and his last scrape of a thought is that John is _really_ going to kill him.

"-okay? Sherlock, slow down- do you need me to-"

"I'm _fine,"_ he snarls. He smacks Lestrade's hand away and pants through gritted teeth like a dog. " _Stop it._ I'm fine!"

He's not, really. But he must be, because he is _tired_ of taking steps back, he is _tired_ of being the reason John looks like he could barely get out of bed, and he can not let _solving a case_ be the reason that he fails. So he pants and clutches his chest and probably takes ten years off of Lestrade's life, but he lets the man hold his shoulders and talk him through breathing, and slowing down, and not passing out, and it's humiliating and disgusting but he's too worn out to care.

He hangs his head and breathes.

Lestrade finally let his shoulder go, his hand gone cold and clammy. He's looking at him in a way that's just _hateful._ "We're going back upstairs," he says, " _now."_ His voice is ragged, and Sherlock knows better than to protest that he can manage it on his own.

The silence lasts until they get to the lift, Lestrade stabbing the button like it said something terribly offensive. Sherlock sulks, still working to get his breaths under control, and would rather prefer just melting into the floor to never get up again.

He is still busy pointedly avoiding all eye contact when the inspector speaks up again.

"So." He clears his throat. "You still don't remember who shot you, then?"

The question is pointed and oddly flat. As if it's not a question at all, really, but a statement of fact.

As if he knows.

"Nope," Sherlock returns, popping the p.

He doesn't bring it up again.

* * *

The next non-John visitor is Molly.

This time, she comes in-person, stopping by late enough that it's after work. She's dressed to the nines under a heavy coat, hair shiny and styled and hauled back all into a sloppy ponytail, and the way she carries herself is particularly miserable.

Sherlock plucks up an English muffin from Mrs. Hudson's last visit and offers it across the room.

"Sixth date didn't work out?"

She barely offers up a half-hearted shrug, the muffin passed from hand to hand and her mouth turned down. "I really would've appreciated him letting me know before tonight." She claims the side of his bed- Sherlock is currently taking up space in the room's only chair, half-asleep through a livestream of a forensics conference in France- and then. Then she just _sits there._ She sits there, staring at and holding a muffin, looking sad.

Christ. Is he supposed to say something? Does Molly actually _want him_ to make her cry tonight? Because he actually doesn't want to, but he's not so sure he's able to make this end any other way.

Well, he supposes, plucking up a muffin for himself. Perhaps it's not all bad.

John Watson is infinitely superior to sixth-date-cake-man, in every conceivable way and in all ways that still have yet to be conceived of. But he still understands the feeling well enough now that he doesn't mind all that much, being Molly's distraction for the evening, or a blunt and unskilled tool used to cheer herself up. 

He swallows a mouthful of crumbs. "Want me to deduce all the ways that his life is an unquantifiable disaster, and he was decidedly not worth any more of your time?"

Her eyes flutter, an odd mixture of expensive mascara and red and puffy. "Would you?" She hands him her phone, already pulled up to her most recent conversation, and Sherlock decides that being human isn't all bad after all.

* * *

Sherlock heals.

He gains weight, much to John's approval, and the last of the IVs come out. He's steadier on his feet, and the doctors stop talking about infection and his next scan and start talking instead about how he'll manage at home. Acute pain management turns into discussions about chronic pain management instead.

(Tedious. Deleted.)

He proposes a meeting with Magnussen. Because Magnussen remains a threat, primarily in his aims to control Mary, but that puts John under his sphere of influence, and this Sherlock _will not stand._ He will remove Magnussen as a factor no matter what it takes, and it starts now.

He just about gets drawn and quartered for the proposal. The number of Mycroft's goons outside his room doubles, and his brother swears if he tries anything again, he will contact the parental unit.

Stitches turn into scars. Scars join his growing collection. The deep, driving agony begins to soften, joining the pain in his back and joints from his two years away and two months spent bleeding in a Serbian hole.

And the world moves on.

It moves on like it did when he stepped off a rooftop and forced John to watch. It moves on like it did when he stood up at a wedding and gave a bloody speech _._ It moves on like it did when he was shot in Magnussen's penthouse and left for dead.

Sometimes, he's even able to drag himself to move along with it.

Sometimes, he needs a bit of help to get back on track.

John steps out of the elevator with takeaway in hand and takes a full three steps past Sherlock before finally reeling to a stop. He does a double take, staring back with wide eyes, and Sherlock only just barely has enough pride left to manage a raised hand back in answer.

"Um. Hello." John linger on, right there in the middle of the hallway. "Fancy a change of scenery?"

"...something like that."

John just looks at him. He stands there and stares down at him, his eyes unreadable, and Sherlock settles himself in for what is going to be yet another tongue-lashing of a lifetime.

Instead, his friend is quiet.

Instead, Sherlock watches as John simply sits down beside him, wordless and, for some reason, _not_ dragging him back to his feet. He doesn't push him to explain, doesn't do anything but sit there and dig a hand into the plastic bag of takeaway and settle himself in for what is absolutely clear is meant to be the long haul.

The sting of weakness finally is mollified into disgruntled exhaustion instead.

"I..." He stops, swallowing. How best to word this, to not set John off... "I might've upset the therapist."

"Oh, did you."

Sherlock sucks his lip between his teeth. _Tedious._ But John is amused rather than annoyed, smiling very slightly, and it's enough to soften the blow to his wounded pride. "He's cheating on his fiance. Planning to use the wedding as a distraction to elope with his girlfriend instead. He's despicable, John. What happened to making sure I only get the best?"

"Well," John says thoughtfully, and around a mouthful of food. " _The best_ is probably downstairs right now, seeing to a different patient. After she quit you, when you publicly deduced _her_ relationship problems to the whole floor. Remember that, Sherlock?"

He does. Of course he does. He huffs and turns his glower to the floor, arms folded tightly, and even John's mollifying brush to his arm does nothing to calm him. "I was _bored,"_ he snaps, "What else am I meant to do? I've been stuck here with _nothing to do_ because cluedo doesn't bloody count, and I want to go _home_ but you and Mycroft keep standing in my way."

He'd wound up abandoned halfway on the walk around the floor, thoroughly disgusted with himself and the world at large, and he hadn't been able to _stand it_. It had been intended as a stunt. Show off the fact that he could walk about just fine, thank you very much, and therefore had no reason to still be in hospital, and thusly demand to be discharged. Instead he wound up catching his breath on a plastic bench.

He has been away for two years and counting. And the fact that John is home, now, John is smiling at him again, everything is so close to right he barely dares to believe it's true-

And he's shoved away from it by bureaucratic red tape and his own transport's infuriating inability to piece itself back together.

He is sick and tired of this.

He wants to go _home._

"You're doing really well, actually," John says carefully, when he has decided they have evidently been sitting here long enough. "I know you're getting impatient, but I've been keeping an eye on your charts, Sherlock. Everything looks good and is looking better by the day. You'll be home in a couple days."

Not soon enough.

John sighs. "As long as you're here, eat something, will you?" He hands Sherlock a styrofoam container of something or other, and now his face is doing that _thing,_ where he's fighting a smile because he doesn't want to indulge Sherlock but is going to give in anyway. "And stop being such a baby. When I was shot I was in rehab for months."

"And then you turned up on my doorstep with a limp and a psychosomatic tremor. Purely coincidentally."

"Turned up on your doorstep?" He laughs, and the sound is so warm and infectious and heavy Sherlock wants to wrap his arms around it and bury it right in the hole left by the bullet. "You mean you took one look at me and decided I was going to be your new flatmate, no matter what I thought about it! Didn't even wait twelve hours before kidnapping me to a crime scene."

"You love it," Sherlock points out. He's smiling too, now.

John's not the only one who loves it.

John grins, running a hand through his hair. "I do. God help me."

Sherlock doesn't think that something inside him will ever stop jumping with exhilarated, selfish joy, every time he sees John's left hand, and the ring finger that is bare.

But John isn't quite observant enough to notice, and instead just continues on his nonsense mission to rally Sherlock, as if his appearance here hadn't done the whole job already. "You'll be home before Christmas," he assures, nudging his hand again. "Believe it or not. And I'll be nice, this year. Won't even make you go to a party." Then he stops, and his own smiles starts to fall. "...To be honest, I don't think I'll want much to do with people either, this time around."

No. No, he can imagine not.

John looks tired again. Tired the way he had in the last weeks leading up to the wedding, and the morning he found him in a drug den. He looks tired again just thinking about it.

Mary shot Sherlock through the heart. Sherlock forgives it, because he's in his thirties, now, and has never once grasped how to care about himself.

What he doesn't forgive is that the bullet went straight through Sherlock, and smashed a second gunshot wound directly into John Watson's life.

"So we'll badger Mrs. Hudson into making us tea, play cluedo, and listen to lonely drunks attempting their own rendition of Christmas carols on the streets." He steeples his fingers together. It's definitely not good that the thought alone thrills him more than anything he's heard in a month. "A traditional and happy Christmas."

John snickers under his breath, and the moment is passed. "It's sure better than anything else on the books. Come on." He gives Sherlock his hands, and together, they haul him to his feet. He is balanced on John's shoulders with his head empty and hanging, and for several moments they just stand there, Sherlock leaning on John and breathing into his hair right there in the middle of the hallway.

People will probably talk.

John doesn't complain.

They should probably move apart, now.

John doesn't move.

"I'd offer to get you a present," John says after several moments. "But something tells me there's nothing I could get you besides a locked room murder. And unfortunately, that's a bit not good, I think." His breath is warm against Sherlock's neck, and it's a crime when he pulls away. The only mollification is that he keeps a hand tightly on his arm, to give just enough support to not be insulting. "There's nothing else you'd even want, is there?"

Something else that he'd want?

John is home. John Watson is home. John Watson is home to stay. John Watson looks unhappy and tired and is wounded and has both the worst ex-wife and the worst best friend in the entire history of recorded time. John Watson is home and not wearing his wedding ring.

Sherlock opens his mouth, and Sherlock, like an idiot, says, "You."

"What?" John grins, raising an eyebrow at him in tangible amusement. "Me? What's that supposed to mean?"

They take another step together down the hall, John warm and _absolutely perfect_ on his arm, and so, so far away.

Sherlock sighs.

"Oh, nothing," he says. "Nothing at all."

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is welcome and always appreciated! Stay healthy!!! <3
> 
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